It is often difficult for a user to evaluate the proper operation of a timepiece, and in particular its time drift, known as “variation in rate”. The user has to rely upon the manufacturer in order to know the features of his watch or timepiece.
The performance of a timepiece may degenerate over time, particularly for reasons of lubrication, or due to wear in extreme conditions.
Software has appeared on the market for measuring the instantaneous rate of a mechanical watch, the principle of which consists in measuring ticking with the microphone of a mobile telephone and deducing therefrom the oscillation frequency and thus the rate of the watch, which provides an estimate of its variation in rate. However, the accuracy of this type of system is still not very good, i.e. around 5 seconds per day, and it is complex to use since it is impossible to detect the signal if there is ambient background noise.
Although providing an alternative to the professional laboratory means used to date, this software is therefore too limited.